Bomb threat reported at Kent General Hospital

Wednesday

Feb 13, 2013 at 8:49 PMFeb 13, 2013 at 11:36 PM

Law enforcement officials from the city of Dover and the state of Delaware worked to defuse a bomb threat that was reported at Kent General Hospital around 6 p.m., Wednesday according to Bayhealth and city officials.

By Jennifer Hayes and Antonio Prado@DoverPost

Law enforcement officials from the city of Dover and the state of Delaware worked to defuse a bomb threat that was reported at Kent General Hospital around 6 p.m., Wednesday according to Bayhealth and city officials.

The switchboard at Bayhealth-Kent General Hospital received the bomb threat via telephone, said Pam Marecki, a spokeswoman for Bayhealth.

The hospital's emergency plan was put into action, which involved notifying key hospital personnel and emergency responders, including Dover Police, the Dover Fire Department and Delaware State Police.

A floor-to-floor search was conducted to make sure patients, visitors, employees and physicians were safe. At this time, nothing has been found, Markecki said.

Dover Director of Public Affairs and Emergency Management Coordinator Kay Dietz-Sass was in the middle of the Capital Board of Education's executive session when she was called to the scene at Kent General shortly before 7 p.m. She immediately left the meeting and did not return until the last portion of the meeting after 9 p.m.

Delaware State Police took the lead in the investigation while the Dover Air Force Base provided personnel and dogs to help sniff out all seven floors the hospital along with K-9 units from all over the state, Dietz-Sass said.

There was some conversation at the scene about the last time anything like this or something similar happened in Dover and no one could think of anything offhand, Dietz-Sass said.

"The thing about something like this is you have people involved who can't get up and walk around whereas if this happens at the high school you can evacuate the high school," she said. "It's harder to do that at a hospital.

"The best part of the whole thing was the resources coming together to make sure everyone was safe and to restore normalcy."